ing the Roman Catholics. In that year considerable immunities were granted. From that period till 1784, they were incorporated with the Protestant Volunteers. Yet they con tinued, in the opinion of Orellana, who wrote in that year, incapable of liberty. But strange to tell! since Parliament suspended its good offices, since the Volunteers in the Roman Catholic provinces laid down their arms, they have, as it were by magic, "acquired an enlargement of mind, and an energy of character, and are as well qualified to exercise the elective franchise, as most of the Protestant forty-shilling free-holders." The fact I am not now disputing. I never thought it the hinge of the controversy. I only note the inconsistency.

Again--though the Catholics continued incapable in 1784, we are assured, that "it is the will to be free that makes the capability; the first sigh that the heart sends forth for liberty is a sufficient indication of potency to enjoy it. The conclu sion is, that till 1784, the Catholics had never formed a wish, or sent forth a sigh for liberty. But enough of this. The lion in the net became an object of pity even to the mouse.

Lastly-I am blamed for having insinuated, that a diver sity of opinion prevails in Belfast, and blabbed a secret known to 20,000 people. Two hundred and fifty persons, including, with very few exceptions, all the inhabitants, who had ever distinguished themselves by abilities, and patriotic exertion, signed a counter-declaration to a petition, subscribed by six hundred. The first club of United Irishmen, we are now told, differed from both; from the minority, because they voted against them; from the petition for immediate and universal enfranchisement, because they are sworn to forward the means of reform progressively; and if the means be progressive, the end cannot be immediate. Among those who signed the petition, some subscribed it for the sake of unanimity, others on the principle of a sturdy beggar, asking too much in order to obtain something. Lastly, there are many indivi

duals who do not approve of any further communicators of privilege. Notwithstanding all this, should, it seems, have. assured the public, that the town was unanimous; and as I have not done it, my ingenious correspondent steps in, and vindicates the unanimity of Belfast on the Catholic Questiono

I despise the quackery of a political empiric. A regular state physician would not disguise the nature of the complaint; but would watch its symptoms and investigate its proximate cause. This he would find to be la morbid secretion, of an inflammatory nature, occasioning an abscess, and threatening a mortification. He would discover, that all the pus and virus of the body politic, instead of being diluted by the milder juices, and circulating innocently through the frame, have been collected into one part, and are likely toons induce fever, and indicate dissolution. In other words, that” a part of the community have been secluding themselves from the wise and temperate, and, lest, they should be disturbed by such intruders, have established a test to exclude every man that would be disposed to enlighten their darkness, or moderate their violence.

I must still insist, that with regard to the Emancipation of the Roman Catholics, my sentiments are not less liberal than those of the United Irishmen. The difference consists in our modes of operation. I would undermine prejudices and antipathies by sap; they would carry them by storm." With respect to their societies, too, I have never wished to u impeach their intentions: I have only questioned their wiss dom, I never attempted to fix a stain on the principles of suces any of their members: some of them I hold in the highest vot estimation, and have been happy in calling my friends, Innoseg commencing this controversy, I sacrificed my feelings to at sense of duty; but when once engaged, I determined not toodus stint my cause. In this line I have persevered, though sensesveit sible that the Esprit de Corps has an unhappy unhappy effect, in spermatog

de aq verting the most amiable minds, clouding the best under. † standing, and misrepresenting the most inuocent expressions. 1 I too have done with this altercation. I hope neither party will have any more last words. And I conclude with the words of a wise man

Faithful are the wounds of a friend:

"But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.“

THE SOCIETY OF UNITED IRISHMEN.

IN the former part of this volume, we have given all those documents which contributed by the strength of their reasoning and the superiority of their eloquence, to disseminate through the north of Ireland the principles of civil and religious freedom. We have seen the most distinguished men fof Belfast acting on the principles so strongly recommended by their best and ablest writers. We see the fruits of this action in the cordial union and harmony of all denominations of Irishmenthe Protestant embracing the Catholic-assisting him by his counsel and encouraging him by his spirit.

But the Protestant of Ireland was not merely anxious to promote the emancipation of his Catholic countrymen; he aspired to a higher and more important object-he labored to secure for ever the liberty of all in the reform of the Irish legislature, and to effect this great object so interesting and so necessary, we behold the creation of a society called the Sociely of United Trishmen, bound together by a solemn obligation to procure, by all constitutional and legal means, a reform in the Commons House of Parliament; without which the Cathole and the Protestant would be little more than the slaves of a well paid Irish aristocracy. The shamelessness of: parliamentary corruption was notorious. The submission of

the House of Commons to the mandate of the minister, source of perpetual complaint and intolerable grievance, Nothing, therefore, said the patriots of the North, but a cordial union of all parties, by which the public opinion can be unequivocally conveyed to the government and the legislature, will protect the nation against the worst of despotism,--the despotism of three hundred tyrants leagued together to promote their own aggrandizement on the ruins of the nation. ! The greatest enemy which the Society of United Irishmen ever had, had the candor to admit, that it was omnipotent in the suppression of all the worst passions of the human heartthe progeny of a long interval of religious and political auimosity-of a cruel penal code, which barbarized and brutalized a people whose native disposition was of the kindest and most social character.-The United Irish Society brought men of all descriptions together; it tore off the mask with which religious bigotry had so long concealed each man's face from his neighbour-it exposed the real enemy, and directed the public mind to the radical cause of all the evils which visited the nation-it united the North and the South, the East and the West in one common bond of affection, and like the principle of Freemasonry, made every Irishman a brother, no matter what his religion or his station, So great and formidable a union commanded a hearing; the government had therefore two alternatives to choose either to put down this society by force, or to yield to its wishes by the reformation of the Irish legisla ture. Desperate as the former alternative was, Mr. Pitt, who was not to be intimidated by the apprehension of an Irish rebellion, embraced it in the sanguine hope, that such a struggle might lead not only to the extinction of the United Irishmen, but to the extinction of the Irish Legislature, and the annihilation of Irish Independence. Having taken this reso

Lord Clare.

lation, he cared not how many ingredients he threw into the cup to accelerate the national fury. He set the Catholic against the Protestant, and the Protestant against the Catho dic. He held out hopes to the latter, merely to blast them, and promised unlimited ascendancy to the Protestant, in order to exasperate the Catholic. In this desperate crisis, the Society of United Irishmen departed from their original purpose, and merged into the views of the common enemy. It became, in the hands of the ambitious, a powerful engine of annoyance, and, were it not for the occurrence of those misfortunes which no human foresight can effectually guard against, the Minister of England might have had to repent of his determination to drive Ireland into rebellion. Fortune, however, favored Mr. Pitt in the struggle, and the result has been the annihilation of Ireland's national independence. The following are some of the ablest appeals made by the Society of United Irishmen to their fellow-countrymen.-

September 14th, 1792.

SOCIETY OF UNITED IRISHMEN OF DUBLIN.

THE HON. SIMON BUTLER IN THE CHAIR.

THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS WAS UNANIMOUSLY AGREED TO FROM THIS

БОСІЕТУ

TO THE NATION.

WE observe with concern and indignation the insidious means employed to stifle the Catholic voice in its humble representation of the grievances which afflict the people, and of the remedy specified to redress them. We lament that men of any pretensions to common sense and public spirit should have been blindly seduced into the publication of the most flagrant absurdities, calumnies, and libels, against the most oppressed, patient, and numerous description of our fellowcitizens. That such publications should have issued from the